KevinSimback

Back in the 80s and 90s, one of the hottest jobs coming out of school was working on the floor of one of the exchanges
But those jobs were replaced with technology by the time I graduated, so the hot jobs were consulting and i-banking
Now soon to be replaced with technology

So much happening with AI right now it’s hard not feel like a bystander
Simply not enough hours in the day to keep up

Yes “InfoFi” was pretty much a disaster and now the algo hates CT
But we can’t put the slop back in the bag, and no platform is going to displace X
What’s the move to highlight more signal?

Here’s one BIG disconnect with crypto valuations today, catching many teams off guard looking to TGE or raise via ICO
Most of these projects were started years ago before the advent of Claude Code and AI-native dev tooling
Why is this important?
Because these teams needed to raise larger amounts of funding to build out bigger dev teams, and now are compelled to show a return to investors with a higher ICO/TGE val
But the market isn’t stupid - it knows that building almost anything today should cost a fraction of what it took just 1-2 years ago
So that app you built with a 20 person dev team on

In crypto, a good product is not enough if you also launch a token
You also need a good token design and market support
Yeah I know this sounds simple but 2025 has taught us how difficult this is to execute on
So let’s do 2026 the right way

Gm to everyone, no exceptions!

Internet Capital Markets - a tale of 2 cities
ICM has been a top buzzword over the past year, but when most people refer to ICM they think about Pump Fun and various crypto launchpad ICOs - I would call this “Crypto Capital Markets” which is a subset of Internet Capital Markets
The other half of ICM is the institutional capital markets that’s happening onchain - I call this “Institutional Token Markets”
ITM includes tokenized equity (moving towards native equity issued onchain), tokenized primary debt issuance, and other forms of capital raises using tokenized versions of traditional products

Gm to everyone who skipped the Breakpoint parties last night, woke up rested and hit the gym 💪

There’s never been a greater dichotomy in crypto than right now
On one hand, the level of institutional adoption and government support has never been better
On the other hand, the token market structure for alts has never been worse*
Today we saw 2 major announcements that take institutional adoption to a whole new level
1 - JPMC arranged onchain debt issuance for @galaxyhq on @solana
2 - DTCC is now authorized to offer tokenization services after getting a no-action letter from the SEC
And these come on the heels of many other material announcements this year, yet crypto tokens remain in th

Apparently there are some founders who need to hear this
If you are raising a community round, THE VALUATION SHOULD BE NO HIGHER THAN THE LAST INSTITUTIONAL ROUND
Few exceptions

I agree with the perspective that crypto markets are structurally damaged from 10/10
That means it will take some time to heal and patience is required
But don’t let that discourage you on the industry itself - crypto has never had more tailwinds

Back in the gym today for first time in 3 weeks after recovering from surgery
Not gunna lie it’s tough going easy, but feels great to be back at it!
💪💪💪